Do you keep a journal? I’ve never been one to write in a journal or a diary. I do use a planner and I hold onto most of those because they have so much personal information in them. Last year my planner had spaces to recap each month and I guess that is similar to journaling.

I’ve recently started junk journaling or art journaling and I feel like this is more my style because I can use pretty paper and stickers to tell a story and not just words. I’ve also been making journals out of discarded books. I remove all the paper from the book and sew new paper into the spine and redecorate the covers to make a new journal. I really enjoy this type of art.

I also enjoy reading. Like, a lot. A few days ago I cataloged the 1605 eBooks on my Kindle. Yes, you read that right, 1605 digital books. I don’t have that many physical books but I do have a lot and no space to display them. If I could, I would have a beautifully, cozy library in my home. One of those hanging swings with lots of pillows. And maybe a cat to curl up with while I spend hours devouring a spicy romance novel. One can dream.

Putting those day dreams aside, I give you my 2023 Reading Journal. I repurposed a book that was being thrown out from my local library. I sewed in 3 signatures of 8 pages each into the spine. That gives me 96 pages to use for my journal. I used this really cool bookish wrapping paper to cover the book. Then, I made a “name” page and an “introduction” page. I included a reference for how I will rate the books I will review. I (very poorly) drew a library with book shelves for all the books I will read this year. I will color code them by genre. I even included cats in my library page… still dreaming. I also added a tracker sheet for my 2023 Goodreads goal. I want to read 120 books this year. Each month I will keep track of the books I read and the number of pages. I also have a section for my reviews. I won’t write a review in this journal for every book I read, just the ones I feel compelled to spend time talking about. Check out the pictures below of some pages from my journal.

If you would like to watch a short flip through of the entire journal, watch the video on Tik Tok.

“Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart.”

-William Wordsworth